The Risk-Free Childhood project won the grant of the President of the Russian Federation

23 November 2017

The Risk-Free Road Traffic expert center is proud to announce that the Risk-Free Childhood project implemented under the auspices of the State Traffic Police Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Ministry of Healthcare of Russia became a winner of the contest and received the grant of the President of the Russian Federation for the project implementation in three regions of our country!

Risk-Free Childhood is a small, but strategic demographic project aimed at forming one of the most important components of the family institution: ensuring a child’s safety.

It should be noted that according to the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), demographic indicators in our country tend to decline. Thus, in 2016, the birth rate fell by 2.6% (51.9 thousand) and in the first half of this year – by 11.6% (107.349 thousand) as compared to the same period of the last year. We should pay attention to the fact that every year tens of thousands of traffic accidents occur on our country’s roads, where, according to the State Traffic Police Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, over 14,000 traffic accidents involved children in January – September 2017 alone resulting in the death of 563 children and injuries of 15,816 children. In addition to the pain of close relatives due to the loss or disability of their beloved ones, the state suffers from the socio-economic and demographic perspective as well. Without a doubt, all of this proves that human (children’s) lives need to be protected and road safety is to be enhanced.

Russia’s first and still only Risk-Free Childhood project was implemented for the first time in 2013 as part of the Buckle Up federal social campaign of the Russian Association of Motor Insurers and the State Traffic Police Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Since 2015, the project has been implemented on an experimental basis at the V. I. Kulakov federal perinatal center. The key element of the Risk-Free Childhood project includes regularly held information trainings where young parents are explained the importance of using child booster seats and encouraged to buy a child booster seat by the moment of being released from a maternity hospital.

As was already said by Natalia Agre, the project founder and ideologist, president of the Road Safety expert center, a Russian Federation citizen’s behavior must be continuously formed since he/she is born. “This project is the first element of the strategy I would like to implement as part of Risk-Free Childhood. Integration of all the subjects relevant to safety of children under one and somewhat later until they become adult will be the next step. I am confident that young families must be helped preserve a family and, accordingly, helped protect the health and life of children. As a result of this work, we can grow an absolutely new generation of Russians”.

The team of the Risk-Free Road Traffic expert center is sincerely grateful to the Ministry of Healthcare of Russia represented by Elena Nikolaevna Baybarina, Director of the Department of Medical Aid to Children and the Maternity Obstetric Service, Gennady Tikhonovich Sukhikh, Head of the V. I. Kulakov National Perinatal Center, and all the senior officials of the State Traffic Police Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.